Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 September 2020
11. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Community and Rural Development and the Islands her plans to investigate the provision of air services to Inishbofin Island; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24201/20]
View answerA high-quality airstrip was built at Cloon and Laghtanabba in Cleggan and another on Inishbofin. The idea was to provide an air service based at Na Minne in Indreabhán, from where the Aran Islands service already departs, to Cleggan and then on to Inishbofin. This was built in the noughties but was never opened or commissioned subsequently. Will the Minister examine the possibility of providing badly-needed air services to Inishbofin?
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. In April 2017, a public consultation process was undertaken, seeking submissions from interested parties in regard to the future use of airstrips and surrounding sites in the ownership of the State on Inishbofin Island and at Cleggan in County Galway. The majority of the submissions received suggested that the sites should remain in State ownership. There are no plans to provide an air service to Inishbofin at this time.
With regard to the site at Cleggan, I understand discussions have been taking place with the Irish Coast Guard, with a view to utilising part of the site for the provision of a Coast Guard station. In the case of the sites on Inishbofin, officials have had discussions with the HSE, with a view to the use of part of the site to locate a healthcare centre for the island. This is a facility for which the island development company has been campaigning for some time. It is also important to point out that any development which might be undertaken at these sites will not prejudice the potential future use of the airstrips for the provision of air services to Inishbofin.
Inishbofin is 70 miles from Galway and to go to or from Galway on public transport takes 3.5 hours. If the air service was operating, a person could do it in approximately an hour, which is a saving of 2.5 hours each way. If a person tried to do it in a day, one way would take seven hours and the other two hours, which is a saving of five hours.
Everybody agrees that the services to the three Aran islands are lifeline services and are absolutely important. The State does not have public consultations about this; it decides that this is a lifeline service, like a bus service or a train service. However, uniquely in the case of Inishbofin, perhaps because it is a non-Gaeltacht island, although I do not know why, everybody thinks that for a few hundred thousand euro a year, it is not worth providing what would be an even more beneficial service to the people there because they are so far from Galway.
I have one question for the Minister. Will she come out to Inishbofin? I would be happy to go out with her. Will she note how long it takes her to get there? However, do not take the State car, just take the bus.
I want to tell the Deputy that I do not have a State car, I have my own car.
I have visited the islands. Last year, I had the pleasure of attending a wedding on Clare Island and I got an opportunity to see first-hand the difficulties people face. When I was on staycation in Donegal this year, I took the opportunity to go to Arranmore. I took a tour of the island and I saw first-hand the difficulties they face there. I have a certain understanding of what it is like to live in rural Ireland but to live on an island certainly presents many more challenges. I was chatting to the people on Arranmore and I thought that if I had a teenager who wanted to go to the cinema, they would have to get a boat and go to the mainland, and then drive over an hour to get to Letterkenny. The example the Deputy gives about Inishbofin is similar. I am obviously reading into this brief on the islands again.
The Minister should conclude.
Of course. I will finish my answer shortly.
There is only a little time left and I am trying to make sure everybody gets in.
The Minister has all the pieces of the jigsaw there. There are the two airstrips, which are the big cost. There are the aeroplanes based in Na Minne. They are already there and are not fully utilised, so it is a marginal cost to use the pilots and the planes, which are not flying all day because of the constraints on the Aran service, to provide a number of services to Inishbofin. There is no major cost to this. Nobody has costed it in recent times but I had it costed as Minister, and it would not be significant, because most of the overhead costs are already incurred, particularly the base.
The Minister should forget about the public consultation and the standard answer she has given me. Will she sit down and examine how much it would cost to put in this service, given the small residual capital cost of some buildings and fire engines, and then the cost of running it on an annual basis as a lifeline service to the people of Inishbofin?
I am happy to engage with the Deputy on this issue. At the first opportunity, I will go and visit the island.
I would be delighted to go and see first-hand again the issues presenting on those islands off the Galway coast. I have not been to any of them but I would be happy to go there and talk to the Deputy about this matter.
